A Sidewalk Halloween
by KayleeThePete
Summary: Just a little Halloween treat; ties into my story Where the Sidewalk Ends.


AN: I meant to put this out on Halloween day as a sort of treat for my readers, but work called on Friday and I only just got home this morning. Anywho, this is a tie-in for my story _Where the Sidewalk Ends_; I suppose you could read this without reading that, but it probably would make more sense if you read WtSE. But here is my belated Halloween treat for my awesome readers!

Disclaimer: Not mine *sigh*. I just like to borrow the characters.

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**A Sidewalk Halloween**

Jenny stared determinedly at her desk, fighting back the laughter that wanted to spurt forth and struggling with the grin that was trying to force its way across her face.

"I am _so_ sorry about this, Agent Gibbs," the mother said honestly; she turned a glare on her two sons. "Boys," she said expectantly.

The look did very little for the 17 and 15 year olds who had already withered under Jethro's patent intimidating glare hours ago when he had pulled them in after catching them trying to toilet paper the front gate of the Navy Yard.

The elder swallowed, peaking up to look at Jethro before looking right back down at the floor. "Sorry, Agent Gibbs."

The younger could not even lift his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Jethro nodded, though said nothing.

Their mother placed a hand on each of their upper backs, directing them to the elevator. "Come on, boys." She turned back to Jethro. "Thank you, Agent Gibbs." She looked back to the elevator.

After the doors closed behind the mother and sons things were quiet for several moments.

"I think it's safe to laugh now, Jen," Jethro said without looking at her.

Jenny giggled a little but quickly dissolved into full laughter. Decker was quick to follow her leaning back in his chair diagonal to hers. Jenny could hear Pacci's full belly laugh behind her. Stan was chuckling a little more restrainedly across from her.

"I don't believe I gave you permission to laugh, Probie." Jethro sat down at his desk, not looking at any of them.

Stan's face fell, he cleared his throat and got back to work.

Jenny bit her lip. Even though Stan had been there longer than she had Jethro still called him Probie, which he had only done twice to her, back during her first month at NCIS. He also never looked Stan directly in the eye, barely even looked in his direction.

Jethro was making notes on one of their reports as he said, not looking up, "When you all get done with work the director has given us the night off."

All three of their heads came up and looked at their team leader, before looking each other and then getting down to work in earnest. Halloween night off, a rare thing considering how it generally was one of the weirdest and busiest nights; none of them were going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

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Stan had bolted at the moment Jethro granted them permission to leave. Jenny stayed behind, talking with Decker while waiting for Jethro to finish what he was working on.

Jethro closed up the file he had been working on and began putting his thing away and getting out his keys. Decker saw this and began packing up to leave as well. "I'd better get going, my sister's expecting me to come help take her kids trick-or-treating."

Jenny nodded. "Happy Halloween."

"You too, Jenny." He nodded; then looked over at Jethro. "Happy Halloween, Gibbs."

Jethro nodded. "Same."

The couple waited until their friend had left before heading toward the elevator together.

He pressed the button; then turned to her. "Any plans for tonight?"

"Other than handing out candy? No." She shook her head.

"We're not doing anything that special either." The elevator dinged and the doors opened; the both stepped inside. "Ducky's coming over and Kelly and her best friend Maddie are going trick-or-treating together; then Maddie's going to spend the night. You can come…if you want." He kept his voice neutral, but Jenny knew him well enough to tell that he did want her there.

"I would love to come." She grinned as the doors closed.

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It was unseasonably warm for Halloween day. As Jenny had driven up the street to the Gibbs residence she had seen the children running around with water guns, water balloons, buckets of water, hoses, anything the children could get their hands on that could hold water and having basically a neighborhood-wide water war.

She walked up the walkway, still watching the kids and smiling at their antics.

Suddenly she was soaked.

She looked down at her outfit, in surprise.

"Oh, my gosh!"

She looked up to see a young blond girl holding a water gun almost as big as she was and looking relatively horrified, but still with some lurking amusement in her eyes.

There was the sound uncontrollable laughter; Jenny looked to her left to see Kelly nearly falling over laughing.

She raised her eyebrow at her lover's daughter. "Kelly," she greeted the girl wryly.

Kelly choked back her laughter and managed to straighten up more or less, her face twitching. "Jenny," she managed relatively seriously, before she started to laugh again.

Jenny rolled her eyes as she turned back to the blond girl in front of her who was fighting laughter herself.

"I'm sorry about that," she managed sincerely, but the amusement still blatantly obvious on her face and in her voice.

Jenny sighed, though feeling amused herself. "It's alright…" she turned her gaze to Kelly questioningly.

"Maddie," Kelly supplied helpfully; she moved to stand next to the other girl. "This is my best friend, Maddie Tyler." She turned to Maddie. "Maddie this is Jenny."

"It's nice to meet you, Ms. Shepard," the blond said politely.

"Just Jenny is fine, Maddie, and it's nice to meet you too. Kelly and Jethro have told me a lot about you…"

"Oh, don't worry," Maddie said, grinning, "only half of it is true."

"The trick is figuring out which half," Kelly put in glibly.

Jenny looked back and forth between the pair, smirking. "You two are quite the double act, aren't you?"

"Yup," they said simultaneously.

"I _am_ sorry about getting you wet," Maddie said again.

Jenny waved her off. "It's fine. I always keep a couple sets of clothes to change into in my car."

The blond tilted her head to the side curiously. "Why do you do that?"

Kelly stifled a giggle, which earned her an arched look from Jenny.

"Let's just say that my job can be messy sometimes and that sleeping at your desk is not unheard of," the redhead replied.

Maddie nodded. "Fair enough."

Jenny turned to Kelly. "Is your dad in?"

The brunette nodded. "Yeah, so's Ducky; they're in the basement."

The older woman nodded. "Run off you two," she motioned with her head to one side.

"Later, Jenny!" "Nice to meet you, Jenny!" the girls called as they bolted off back into the fray.

Jenny went back to her car and pulled out a pair of jeans and a black shirt before heading back to the house.

Jethro was just entering the entranceway from the basement when she came in; he raised his eyebrows at the state of her clothing. "You got nailed?"

She nodded good humouredly. "Maddie accidentally got me."

He snorted. "With that girl I wouldn't be surprised if it had been less than 'by accident.'"

Jenny shook her head. "She was surprised when she realized it was me whom she hit."

He still looked slightly skeptical but nodded in acceptance.

"Can I borrow your room to change?" she asked.

He nodded. "You know where it is."

"Jennifer is that you?"

The couple looked back at the open basement door; a moment later Ducky appeared. "Ah!" He smiled delightedly. "Good to see you, my dear."

"Same, Ducky."

He noticed her clothes. "Oh, what happened?"

"Got caught in the crossfire," she said. "I was about to go get changed; I'll be back in a few." She jogged up the stairs.

15 minutes later she came back down and headed into the kitchen where she heard Jethro and Ducky's voices coming from. Both men looked up when she came in.

"Better," she said grinning.

The M.E. chuckled while her lover just smirked and turned to get out a glass and pour her some bourbon which he then handed to her. She raised it to him in thanks; then took a drink, letting the liquid burn down her throat. That was something that she knew had thrown him when they had first met, her drink of choice being bourbon. It had been her father's favorite and the first alcoholic drink she had been introduced to.

"Well this is rare indeed," Ducky commented, "you for once having Halloween off, Jethro."

He took a drink from his glass and shrugged. "Work." He said simply.

Jenny tilted her head to the side. "Who watches Kelly when you have to work on Halloween?"

"Maddie's family mostly," he told her.

She nodded taking a drink.

"I heard about your little miscreants from this morning," Ducky commented, his voice filled with humor.

Jenny almost choked on the drink she had just taken.

Jethro rolled his eyes, muttering something uncomplimentary about the boys as he took a drink.

Jenny finally managed to swallow and turned to him. "Don't tell me you never played a prank on Halloween."

He looked at her. "I wasn't dumb enough to get caught."

She and Ducky looked at each other; he chuckled and she shook her head grinning.

The front door opened, breathless laughter filling the house, then closed again. Moments later two wet, grinning forms appeared in the doorway.

The three adults looked at the pair appraisingly.

"Have fun?" Jethro asked.

"Yup!" "Oh, yeah!" they chimed.

"Go get cleaned up; the pizza should be here in ten minutes."

The giggling girls ran to the stairs and the adults could hear the running footsteps heading to Kelly's room. Then a set of footsteps came pounding back downstairs; Kelly appeared in the doorway.

"Uh what should we do with our clothes?"

Jethro looked down, smirking, Ducky chuckled and Jenny managed to swallow her drink then cleared her throat, her lips twitching. "I would recommend tossing them in the washing machine."

Kelly nodded. "Cool." She bolted back upstairs, leaving three laughing adults.

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"We're ready!"

All three adults looked up at Kelly's call.

Dinner had been a very fast affair with the two teens eager to get changed into their costumes; as it was between the two of them they managed to eat one large pizza; Jenny had no idea how two girls their size could eat so much.

Standing in the doorway was a brown haired cowgirl and a blond witch; each was holding an old pillowcase to stow their loot in.

Jethro smiled. "You look great, girls."

"Thanks, Daddy." "Thanks, Gibbs."

"Be careful and stay with the group." Jenny had to grin at the protective tone in Jethro's voice. "And try to check in, in an hour."

"Will do," Maddie said and Kelly nodded.

"Be safe." He leaned over hugging Kelly, which she returned and kissed him on the cheek. "Love you, Baby Girl."

"Love you too, Daddy." Kelly grinned at him as they pulled apart. She then turned and gave Ducky a hug.

Jethro turned to Maddie who grinned up at him impishly.

"Don't worry, Gibbs, I'll make sure she stays safe."

He rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath about _now_ having a reason to worry as he leaned over and kissed her forehead.

Jenny was somewhat surprised when Kelly hugged her as well, but returned the embrace readily. Maddie grinned and waved at her after getting a hug from Ducky as well.

"See you later!" Kelly called as the pair headed out the door, joining the group of kids around their age already waiting outside the house.

Jethro stood in the doorway watching the group heading down the sidewalk. Jenny came to stand next to him, placing a hand gently on his arm.

"This is the first year that they're going without adults," he told her not looking away from the girls.

Jenny gave a small smile, leaning against his arm, pressing a kiss to his cloth covered shoulder. "Come on," she said softly, gently pulling on his arm. "Let's make sure there's enough candy for the kids."

He did not move for a moment, but finally allowed her to pull him away; closing the front door.

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Well, there we are. When I started writing this I actually only had the portion from the last chapter of WtSE and the need to write this, and I just started writing from the seat of my pants. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed it! Sorry I wasn't able to post it sooner! This is dedicated to all of my readers and reviewers! Thank you for all the encouragement; I cannot say what it means to me! Happy belated Halloween!


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